Until
very recently, the Vienna Philharmonic maintained a long tradition of
excluding people who are visibly members of racial minorities.The orchestra felt that such individuals would destroy the
ensemble's image of Austrian authenticity.[1]These employment practices were directed most specifically toward
Asians, since many have studied at the Wiener Musikhochschule and reached the
highest professional standards.[2]Many
have also settled in Austria for marriage and other reasons, where they remain
potential candidates for positions in the Philharmonic.

The
memoirs published in 1970 by Otto Strasser, a former chairman of the Vienna
Philharmonic, illustrate the attitudes Asian musicians have confronted:

“I
hold it for incorrect that today the applicants play behind a screen; an
arrangement that was brought in after the Second World War in order to assure
objective judgments. I continuously fought against it, especially after I
became Chairman of the Philharmonic, because I am convinced that to the artist
also belongs the person, that one must not only hear, but also see, in order
to judge him in his entire personality. [...] Even a grotesque situation that
played itself out after my retirement was not able to change the situation. An
applicant qualified himself as the best, and as the screen was raised, there
stood a Japanese before the stunned jury. He was, however, not engaged,
because his face did not fit with the ‘Pizzicato-Polka’ of the New
Year’s Concert.”

In
the late 1990s, the orchestra was put under pressure to change their
employment practices.

In
2001, the orchestra hired Wilfried Hedenborg, an Austrian violinist whose
racial background is half Asian.And
in June 2003, Yasuto Sugiyama, a world-class tubist from the New Japan
Philharmonic, was hired.From the
outset, Sugiyama’s appointment was controversial, especially within the
brass section.He did not pass
his trial year at the Staatsoper and was fired.Soon afterwards, Mr. Sugiyama won the tuba audition for the Cleveland
Symphony Orchestra.

Mr.
Hedenborg's appointment received little notice in the press, but some of the
comments were notable.The German
news magazine _Focus_ remarked that,"Even
a half-Japanese, son of a Philharmoniker, is now allowed to fiddle along. For
a long time this was considered unthinkable, because the television pictures
of the New Year's Concert, Mozart Masses, and Beethoven Symphonies were
broadcast as nostalgic greeting cards of Middle European 'blessedness' to the
whole world."[3]

This
was one of the first times that the Vienna Philharmonic's discrimination
against people who are visibly members of racial minorities had been
acknowledged in the established media. After fulfilling the three-year tenure
requirement, Mr. Hedenborg became a member of the Vienna Philharmonic.Mr. Sugiyama's dismissal, however, raised serious questions.If he were not qualified, how could he so quickly win a position with
the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra?The
United States has only about one twenty-third the number of full-time,
year-round orchestras per capita as Austria, so the competition for positions is much
fiercer.

In
response to its critics, the Vienna Philharmonic continues to rely on
tokenism.They mention Mr.
Hedenborg, as if having one member who is half Asian somehow represents
integration.All other major
orchestras in the world have a much higher representation of Asian members.The closely related Berlin Philharmonic even has a Japanese
concertmaster, Toru Yasunaga.

In
a 1998 interview in the Austrian magazine News, the Vienna
Philharmonic’s chairman, Clemens Hellsberg, insisted that the orchestra has
had difficulty finding qualified musicians of Asian heritage:

“It’s
out of the question to say we do not accept Japanese.It is just that we have never found any who fit with our
special style of playing.If they
don’t have it, they won’t be accepted, and to have studied in Vienna is no
guarantee.Our musicians come out
of ten nations, many out of the former Danube Monarchy, our new solo-cellist,
for example, from the Budapest Opera.This
is a matter of cultural tradition.”

[4]

Almost
half of the musicians at the Vienna Academy of Music (Wiener Musikhochschule)
are foreigners, and most of those are Asians.It seems unlikely that no Asians in the 60 years since the Second World
War that were qualified to enter the orchestra.

This
season, violist Ursula Plaichinger was to have become the first non-harpist
woman to become a member of the Vienna Philharmonic, but she took a leave of
absence under circumstances that have not been explained.With Ms. Plaichinger's departure, and Mr. Sugiyama's firing, an air of
mistrust still surrounds the Vienna Philharmonic and its willingness to end
its gender and racial employment practices.

Endnotes:

[1]For documentation of the Vienna Philharmonic's racial ideologies, see
the following articles:

[2]For a specific discussion and further documentation of how these racial
ideologies are specifically directed toward Asians, see: "The Special
Characteristics of the Vienna Philharmonic's Racial Ideologies" at: <http://www.osborne-conant.org/posts/special.htm>

[3] Focus, "Ein
Himmel Voller Geigen" (December 31, 2000.)("Sogar ein Halbjapaner, Sohn eines Philharmonikers, darf jetzt
mitgeigen. Das galt lange als undenkbar, weil die Fernsehbilder von
Neujahrskonzert, Mozart-Messen und Beethoven-Symphonien als Grußkarten
nostalgischer Mitteleuropa-Seligkeit in alle Welt gesendet wurden.")The sentence is
difficult to translate in its subtleties. The term "Halbjapaner" can
have an ugly tone approaching "half breed." An equivalent in English
might be like saying "a half-negro." There is a quality of racial
sarcasm to the statement that is disturbing because it is difficult to
determine how ironically it was meant. The article says the musician in
question is the son of„Philharmoniker,“
but no one else with name Hedenborg is listed among the personnel.If the article is correct, it is possible that there is a
second person in the orchestra who is half Asian.

[5]
Mr. Ozawa is the General Music Director of the Vienna State Opera, but the
conductors there are appointed by the house's administration, not the
orchestra.The Vienna
Philharmonic is a private enterprise the musicians run on the side.The Philharmonic chooses its own conductors, where Ozawa has
only occasionally worked as an invited guest.